Downloading From The Internet: Should it be Allowed? :: Music Internet Computers Essays

Downloading From The Internet: Should it be Allowed? Amy Harmon and John Schwartz’s article, â€Å"The Problem With Sharing†, published in the November 17 issue of New York Times Upfront, discusses problems with downloading files from the Internet. The article explains that there are many problems with downloading music from the Internet for free. The article states that the attitude all across America is that people feel that anything that is on the Internet is considered free. Most any Internet file sharing is illegal. The music has started to sue people who share files. â€Å"Last month, the industry followed up on its September lawsuits against 261 people accused of illegally downloading music by notifying another 204 people that they would be next† (Harmon, Amy and John Schwartz par. 5). Downloading does not fairly pay artists or owners of the material being downloaded. â€Å"I presume the problem these laws are having some impact, but they’re not solving the problem,† says Senator Norm Coleman, a Minnesota Republican (Harmon, Amy and John Schwartz par. 7). The article also states that the music industry says that downloading a song from the Internet is like stealing a CD from a store. The American public seems to think that it’s just like recording a song of the radio. The copyright laws says that it is legal to record and distribute copies of a song, as long as they are purchased, to family and friends but its illegal to distribute them to strangers (Harmon, Amy and John Schwartz par. 9). The article says that earlier thing like radio stations were being protested by artists until they got paid royalties for radio stations playing their songs. There are some musicians and some small record companies that support downloading because they say it gets artists music at no cost to them. There are several new sites like itunes that sell downloadable music for a cheap price (Harmon, Amy and John Schwartz p. 19). The article states that they’re several downloading sites like Kazaa that let people share files for free. The ages of the users vary. According to Nielsen/Net Ratings 3.9million people of all ages used Kazaa during the week of September 15 (Harmon, Amy and John Schwartz p. 20). â€Å"As long as technology makes the illegal behavior so easy- and when for many people, it doesn’t feel illegal—the record companies will need to do more than sue† (Harmon, Amy and John Schwartz p.